Mixing the Shrine of the Aquila and Sanctum Imperialis terrain kits

A nicely laid out board courtesy of Games Workshop

Good afternoon minions of the Plague Father and welcome to another Sunday afternoon. This week I had been planing to continue my rhino ( currently sat on my painting table after being under coated ) however following on from my big sort out last week I decided to assemble a new piece of terrain for my board.

Originally I was going to build the Shrine of the Aquila as I had an unopened one just wasting away in the corner begging to be built (even more than the Imperial Sector ).

However after a dry fitting I decided it could be slightly larger to balance off with the 4 floor building I already have. After looking around the internet I saw a very nice looking model on the Games Workshop site.

An impressive building I may still build at some point.

Unfortunately while I had all the spare parts to make this impressive model it came in at over two foot long, a foot wide and over a foot high in places which seemed too big and was scrapped.

So instead I decided to try my hand at mixing a few of the Games Workshop kits to see what I could make. Drawing inspiration from the original conversion I saw on DakkaDakka which made me buy the Aquila last year, I mixed it with the Sanctum Imperialis from my Imperial Sector.

A view of the front ...

The model went together better than I expected, with the shrine having very few pieces only a little filing and cutting were needed to join it with the Sanctum. The joins did have a few issues as the large pieces of the Aquila seemed to be just a little bent which I hadn't noticed before so a dash of green stuff to fill a few holes and sections between floors and I'm happy. The size and LOS blocking it provides is more in the area I was after though the Aquila itself is by no means a slouch.

and rear with a little of the green stuff showing.

All being well I'll get this painted up without too much grief and try it our in game some time soon to see if it fits in and worth the delay in my painting.

Until next time I hope you have enjoyed my humble offering to the Plague Father.

O'Shashar

Dark Angels Army Project

Greetings all! Well I thought it was about time I make myself known and add a post to the fine work already done by my comrades here at the Cupboard.

So thoughts went immediately to what should my first post be about? I play with three main armies, and first started playing 40k over 20 years ago so there were a whole host of things I could post. Then it hit me.

This post is dedicated to all those out there, like me, who love the game, love the story and myth behind all the races, love building a good army even when you end up getting annihilated, BUT when it comes to modelling and painting you're not right good...

That's me. When it comes to painting I'm absolutely useless. I always have a picture in my head of how amazingly well painted each miniature is going to come out, but somewhere along the way it all goes pear shaped. Ah well, ones for the one god and all that.

So what's this post all about? Well whenever I have idea's for modding or painting, I'll go have a look all over t'intarweb for guides and you see all these guides where someone takes a coat hanger and stick and builds the emperor's Gothic palace in fine detail all in 3 steps. I just end up with a coat hanger that's got a stick sello taped to it. So this post, will be one for those of us who aren't so good at painting or modding but make up for it with enthusiasm and love of the game itself.

As I say I started playing the game many years ago, and had quite a long break off and have recently been pulled back in by O'Shashar. Now I've always wanted a Dark Angel army list and had a few marines back from when I started to play so have decided on a 1750 point list of DA and I'm now building this up using the bits I have, as well as adding newer pieces and painting them up.

So first of all, what's the list?

HQ 1

Sammael

Ravenwing master on Jetbike

Troop

Ravenwing Squadron

6 Marine Bikers + 1 Attack Bike

Included in here are 1 Sergeant with Power Weapon, 1 Apothecary, 1 Plasma Gun, 1 Melta Gun and a Multi-Melta on the Attack Bike

Troop

Marine Tactical Squad in a Razorback

4 Marines & 1 Sergeant

1 Plasma Gun & Melta bombs

Razorback has Twin Linked Lascannon

HQ 2

Belial

Deathwing master with Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

Troop

Deathwing Terminators

4 Terminators & 1 Sergeant

1 Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 with Lightning Claws and 3 with Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield

Troop

Deathwing Terminators

3 Terminators, 1 Sergeant & 1 Apothecary

1 Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 with Lightning Claws and 3 with Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield

Elite

Dreadnought

Twin-linked Autocannon & Missile Launcher

Elite

Dreadnought

Twin-linked Autocannon & Missile Launcher

Heavy

Predator

Autocannon & Lascannons on side sponsons

So thats my list where I want to end up. So what's my starting material?

Marine Cleric on Jetbike

This is quite an old miniature that you can no longer buy. Also, as the only marine who still rides a jetbike is Sammael I thought this would be ideal.

5 Terminators

Bought around the time of the original Space Hulk game, 2 with LC and 2 with TH/SS.

5 Space Marines

1 Rhino

This is being converted using a Lascannon turret from the Space Crusade game to turn it into a Razorback.

1 Terminator Librarian

From the Space Hulk Deathwing addon, this is being converted into Belial.

1 Dreadnought

From the Assault on Blackreach pack.

6 Marine Bikers in various states of repair.

To add to the above I will then just need 1 more pack of Terminators, a Predator and a Dreadnought. Then look to get the Ravenwing attachments sprue to customise the marine bikes.

So for my first post I'm starting with the easiest bit of modding and painting. The Razorback.

First of all we take 1 Rhino. This Rhino is one I procured from O'Shashar and was painted plain black for his Templars army. I've added a little detail on to the exhaust pipes and side panels, not a lot, but it helps to break up the plain black. All that was used was some Boltgun Metal paint.

Next we take the lascannon turret from the old Space Crusade game. Here modelled in a lovely shade of yellow.

Next Stage is to separate the cannon from the base and paint it up so it matches the rest of the Rhino, as I'm not sure the yellow would really go. Again looking at Chaos Black with some of the pipes in Boltgun Metal, then dry brushed with Boltgun metal to give it a kind of metallic look.

Finally we then magnetise the turret and attach. This can then be removed should I just need a plain old Rhino any time.

And there we have it. It's not amazing, it's not going to win any Golden Demon awards, but on the board I have to say it looks pretty damn good and I like it.

Next post will look at the Terminators I have and converting them to my first Deathwing Squad.

Black Templar or Tomb Kings

 
Good afternoon children of the Plague Father thank you for joining me again in our humble part of his garden. This week has been a little hectic with me getting 16 skeletal archers built up to go with my Liche priest and following that up by treating them all to a base coat.

This had me thinking I was on track with Tomb Kings and I would start painting them up allowing me to finally stick to my plans of 1 unit finished before I buy another..

However after a 2v2 game with Mighty Simo and his friend Liam ( which saw me rolling out my Templar to back up my T'au Cadre as our usual forth wasn't free ). I was quite happy with how they played out, despite not using them for over a year and me not really knowing what was the best way to use them since the FAQ. This reminded me that I had a few unopened boxes waiting to be built up in my 40k corner ( and gave me an excuse to open every box to see what treasure was hiding in plain sight )

Nearly £100 worth of marines ignored on a shelf and my wife still lets me live is a miracle

With my passion for the Crusaders reignited I took a willing volunteer to the painting table to see if I could do a better job with then than my last attempt with them nearly two years ago ( the sneaky T'au stole their place as my main army and are still holding that title firmly ).  So to strike while the iron was hot I part assembled the Razorback as a Rhino with the Forgeworld Rhino front & doors kit ( Not sure when they managed to get in my bits box but I have 2 sets of them along with 10 Forgeworld Templar Shields & Shoulder pads )

Dry fitted together nicely except the doors which needed some hot water treatment

I have left the top off to try and encourage myself to paint the inside as I know I won't do it if I make it too fiddly but I do want to improve my modelling and painting so needs must. I looked at using the Forgeworld rear hatch but think it maybe too much to have it on all four sides so instead a small symbol from the chapter upgrade pack was stuck on instead which is a little more subtle and I like the out come so here's hope others do too.

Realistically I know I'm not the quickest modeller or painter and I should pick just one but my Black Templars need love and the Tomb Kings are an army I have wanted since I was little ( not that I have ever actually played fantasy ) so both are going to be stealing what little free time I have. On the upside they are very different models so should let me practice different techniques and help me improve ( not to mention plenty of fodder to post on here to keep me from losing favour with the Plague father ).

Until next time children.

O'Shashar

A Further venture into Citadel Finecast

Good afternoon, daemonic spawn of the great unclean one. I have been very busy of late and have got one or two terrain tutorials lined up for you next week. I was going to post a battle report from a game we had on Tuesday, but after about turn 3 the content severely dropped, so we are still working the bugs out of that, the pictures where not great either. Needless to say O'Shashar gave me and my friend Liam a butt whooping. Anyway onto my post on Citadel Finecast.

As you can see above is a box of new Citadel Finecast Eldar Rangers. They look pretty good, although they are not mine :( They are for a friend of mine, who unfortunately is a bit slack when it comes to modelling. At first glance they look really good and I thought I would continue where O'Shashar left off, you will understand why later on.

Now as you can see this model had a slightly bent gun, now with a metal model you could have bent this back into shapes. Wit h the resin if you not already aware is to pop the part you want to fix in hot water for about 10-20 seconds and then bend back into shape. Then plunge it into cold water to set the resin and there you go, fixed!

Now, hopefully you can see the contrast in quality on the two models above. The one at the left is a perfect cast, with little cleaning up needed. However the right model looks a little 'rough' and not as crisp.

Again a close up of one of the models, as you can see I have circled a huge bubble almost the size of the foot. In the most recent White Dwarf it says there may be a few small bubbles that can be fixed with glue, I don't want to sound funny, but I doubt this would work here and green stuff is the only option.

In summary, I really really want to like the Citadel Finecast range, I really do, but the consistent quality unfortunately lets the product down. Now I have handled 11 Finecast miniatures and there is a clear inconsistency. The Chaplain I won on the Blog Wars raffle is of outstanding casting quality, but as you can see above I found casting quality and bubbles on nearly half of the miniatures and to me if this is going to be the case it does not justify the price increase, so GW if you see this please increase your Quality Control to avoid disappointed customers!

I will admit though that Finecast is alot easy and quicker then metal, but due to the quality problems I have outlined you can end up doing more work then needed, especially for the price hike! I would suggest to anyone out there that if you are buying finecast, try and do it in a shop so you cna look at the miniatures before you buy them to avoid dissappointment.

First Venture in to Finecast

The official promo picture of the new finecast Liche Priest

Following on from finishing my T'au to the table top level for Blogwars I have decided to have a little break from them as I feel a little burnt out. We have recently been talking about trying WFB and the first army in the range that caught my eye when I was young was the Tomb Kings but never went any further than just liking the look of them.

Now they have been re-released with a shiny new army book to go with 8th I have decided to try my hand at collecting a small force ( no doubt it will quickly get out of control ) so I can try a game as I have never played a fantasy properly so could end up being a painting exercise but who doesn't love skeleton minions.

Now if you are still with me following my ramblings I applaud you, now as the title and the picture suggest my first model I have picked up is a finecast Liche Priest and a box of basic Skeletons I plan to build as archers but today is about the priest. I bought it in store as had heard all sorts of rumours about the models and returns being refused for all but the most destroyed of models so needed to eye one up myself.

As luck had it two were in store but both had slight issues, the first had a bent staff and the second had some bubbling on the face so needless to say the crooked staff came home with me.

Cleaner out of the box than I was expecting

Once I got it out of the box it was looking cleaner than I expected with only a little bit of flash mainly focused around the cloth and the blade of his staff which came away with little effort though the blade had two large rods of resin stuck to it but nothing else. The first thing I noticed was that it is very flexible ( no models were hurt during test only the sprue getting abused ) and soft so found clippers were no good for the job and had to use my knife instead.

Free from the tyrannical grip of the sprue

At this point I did notice that the underside of the arm holding the staff had bubbled on the bone and pretty much destroyed it as the bone is very thin though is out of site and a small amount of green stuff should fix this I hope.

Over all I'm happy with the model and the new finecast was easy enough to work with though I would have much preferred to just go to plastic rather than resin. However I think I will be avoiding any models I can't see through the packaging as would hate to get home only to find its a miscast and then grief in store trying to return it. Though as I have only heard rumoured stories of refusals you would hope it won't be an issue as long as where you buy don't become unreasonable.

Dry fitted and the withered arm doesn't look as bad as I expected

T'au Blogwars Results

Good morning minions of all ages I apologise it has taken me so long to post how I fared but I have had a busy week of making up for 7 weeks of trying to paint my T'au in time ( I managed it but compared to some of the beautiful paint jobs at Blogwars it was a clearly sub par).

Firstly I would like to thank Alex for organising this event which went very smoothly and the staff at Maelstrom for providing such a good quality gaming environment with plenty of good looking terrain (if not a little sparse on some tables). The only low point of the day was the buffet but I did spend a long time checking out the painted armies so may have been better when it was first brought out.

As this was the first tournament I have attended I was looking forward to seeing how the day would play out. My first game was against a beautiful Imperial Guard army who ended up winning joint best painted army brought to the table by Karitas and I couldn't have asked for a friendlier guy to ease me in to the day. The game ended in a draw on turn 5 after me seeming to have all the luck in the game with only failing a handful of saves all game but needing one more turn to claim his objective.

My second game was against Adam with his Space Wolves which was a brutal game played mostly in my deployment zone which did highlight a slight lack of room in between the tables but otherwise a very close game with a lot of blood spilled on both sides and ending in my second draw of the day.

The final game was against Simo with a Long Fang heavy Space Wolves list which didn't look good for my Suits. Another very close game which at turn 5 I was barely holding on to a win by feeding Bjornn Suits to try and keep him from contesting. Unfortunately it was not meant to be and turn 6 was rolled for and Bjornn stormed forward into 3" of my left objective & his Rune Priest squad chased my cowardly broadsides off and consolidated into 3" of my right objective making the game end at 1-0 to Simo. Mercifully it didn't go to turn 7 so the remnants of my army that remained were spared.

In the end I took 21st out of 26, which was 5 places higher than I was expecting for my first outing and had a thoroughly enjoyable day which will look forward to doing again. I didn't take a camera with me so I have lovingly borrowed a picture from The 40k Project of my army on judging table in all its table top glory.

Blog Wars result

Hello, faithful hordes of the Plague Father. The post is a little later then I would have liked tonight. But just was to say a big thank you to Alex over at From the Fang for organising Blog Wars. I think everyone who attended thoroughly enjoyed themselves today. I have to say that everyone was extremely sporting.

The venue was really good over at Maelstrom Games and I have to say, it is an extremely good contender against Warhammer World. I would certainly recommend trying it out for yourselves.

Anyway, onto how I did today.

Game 1

I played Andy from Iron Wolves who played Space Wolves in my first game. The game type (which was the same for everybody) was Capture and Control with Spearhead deployment. I managed to go first and as you may expect with my list against a Space Wolf list it ended up being a bit of a ruckus in the middle of the board. The game was pretty even, partly due to some unlucky rolling by Andy but the game eventually tipped towards Andy's favor. This was helped when my Daemon Prince trying to lash a squad got perils of warp on his last wound! All I ended up left was my Plague marine squad, which where unable to dispatch the inbound Grey Hunters or the Rhino. I will honestly say I made a couple of mistakes in this game that cost me the loss and the game going to turn 7 certainly didn't help!

Game 2

I played the organiser Alex, another Space Wolf player. The game type this time was Dawn of War and Annihilation. This game was a pretty quick game as again both armies crashed into each other! I will be honest in this game luck was most certainly on my side and had completely deserted Alex. I have to say I truly felt sorry for him as I have been in the same situation and it is the most frustrating situation to be in when nothing goes your way. Ragnar Blackmane did not do as much damage as he is famous for and Kharne managed to survive a Wolf Guard powerfist with snake eyes (and that wasn't all there was far too much to fit in)! I can't remember the exact scoring of the game. I think it was 10 - 6/7 kill points (I have a feeling Alex may post results of all games online), but I was happy to get the win as cheesy as it was.

Game 3

This game I was certainly not looking forward to, the game type was pitched battle with Seize and Control. At the beginning of the day it was announced it would be 5 objectives. To cap this off I faced one of the three Grey Knight lists. Now admittedly I had some very good luck in this game same as the previous, but I dare say alot better, which was helped when my opponent was failing to hit or wound. This lasted 3 turns and I was genuinely surprised how well I was doing against he Grey Knight list. And then Draigo came on and changed everything! Yes he moved the full 12 inches when he deepstruck in to end up further then he wanted, but he managed to take out Kharne, his fellow bezerkers and my terminators with ease (with a little help with the Inquisition and the damned Sanctuary power!). After this, to make matters worse, my dice decided to start rolling 1's and 2's for everything and I had my worst defeat of the day! I have to say I have played the Grey Knights twice with my Chaos since the release and they are extremely good at killing Space marine equivalent armies, even better then they are against daemons!

Results

So I lost twice and won once. Doesn't sound great, but one was a close call and it was my first tournament. The scoring system favor wins over draws greatly, so it meant I ended up in 16th place out of 26 players, which I am extremely pleased with for my first tournament.

I think I certainly have room for improvement in both my gaming and my list. At the moment though my Chaos will be on hold. This week I will be using Photoshop to sort out our site banner. The following two weeks I will be doing some terrain tutorials. After that I will be going back to painting my Warhammer Orcs and Goblins army.

Road to Blogwars, progress update.

Hello, Plague bringers of the Master of Flies. So, Blog Wars is a few days away and everyone out there is having test games and doing the finishing touches to their army. I have had a look around the blogging community at the other lists. I will be honest I am a little worried as some lists look really competitive, while others have fully embraced the fun side of things.

My list is not as good as I would like it to be. I have not had time to paint my 4 new Obliterator models, so unfortunately I am stuck with the old out of production models, that I have mounted onto 40mm bases.

All the models I need are fully painted, majority have my new paint scheme. I only had 7 weeks to get what I needed done, which was 3 Bezerkers, 1 Plague marine, 1 Daemon Prince and 3 Rhino's, which personally I think it pretty good going to get to completely finished to a pretty decent level.

My next step after the tournament is make some terrain (which I will be putting tutorials and pictures up) and then go back to my Warhammer Orcs and Goblins horde :)

I have had about three 1v1 test games (a lot of 2v2 games, but they do not really count) with my list and I have mixed opinions. Against an opponent like O'Shashar I get wiped out, his broadsides easily popping the Rhino's and his crisis suits gorging themselves on the yummy goodness within. However against a vanilla marine list (not a very competitive list though), without the same amount of fire power I nearly wiped it off the face of the board. So I think I wont be a top runner at Blogwars but I want to avoid coming in the bottom 2 or 3 at least.

Anyway the moment you have been waiting for, my Chaos Space marine List (Comments are welcome).

HQ
Kharne the Betrayer

Daemon Prince, with Mark of Slaanesh, wings, Lash of submission

Elites
5 Chaos Terminators with 1 chainfist, 1 powerfist, 2 combi meltas and reaper autocannon

Troops
8 Khorne Bezerkers with 1 skull champion equipped with powerfist and personal icon
mounted in rhino

8 Khorne Bezerkers with 1 skull champion equipped with powerfist and personal icon
mounted in rhino

7 Plague Marines with 2 plasma guns and 1 champion equipped with powerfist and personal icon

Heavy Support
2 Obliterators

2 Obliterators

1 Defiler swapping reaper autocannon with extra close combat weapon

I know its not the best list available, but for the models I had at my disposal that where painted (or get painted in time) this is the best I could get. The idea is that the Obliterators and Defiler go tank/monstrous creature/elite squad hunting. The Defiler constantly advances, so when the inevitable happen (the battle cannon gets removed) it wades into the nearest unit.

The 2 Bezerker squads have Kharne and the Daemon Prince for a very hard hitting, objective capturing section of my army. The plague marines concentrate on objective capturing and holding. The terminators deep strike near one of the 4 icons on the board to give close range support where needed.

There are a few things I would change on this list if I had the time available. Swap out the Defiler as he had been very inconsistent for me. Give the Rhino's extra Armour or Daemonic possession. Look at swapping one of the Bezerker squads for a normal marine squad and mount Kharne with 9 Bezerkers in a Land raider.

Anyway I apologise for the length of the article, but comments are welcome :)